Exhibiting a few frames of my life

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It should be “I had a blog!” Though it sounds weird, but looking at the frequency of my posts in the blog, it’s past tense long ago. The last post I wrote in my blog was July 2011, the month Ayaat came to our life. Post that blog, it’s been almost a year and 10 months, and I haven’t written a single post in my blog.

What exactly went wrong that I stopped writing at all? I was never a writer, but liked to try to convert my thoughts into black and white whenever I got time. So, have I stopped thinking of late? May be, nowadays, the mind doesn’t get much time to think. Most of the time is consumed by office works, the rest I got, I like to spend with my family, especially my daughter, and what left I directly invest in TV series, though I’m not talking about Saas Bahu series.

If I think hard, it’s not only blog that I stopped for a long period of time. I’m finding it difficult to remember the name of the last book that I read completely. There’s a long list of books that I started and stopped abruptly in between, and I never saw their last page.

So, no blogging, no reading, what else? I’ve also become quite a bit distant from my guitar these days. It’s just last weekend, I realized that my guitar needs service and repair and the cause was my infrequent endeavor with the guitar. Although didn’t know what pushed me, I went out and got my guitar repaired, even ignoring the scorching heat of the day, which is sufficient to demotivate not to do things during Delhi summer.

So, among lots of no dos, I think I’ll try to revive my guitar playing a bit in the coming days. I don’t know whether I’ll become regular again to my blog and books, but right now thinking about giving them a try too. So, I’ll wait and see….

It was a pleasant Monday morning, July 4th, and an American holiday (there’s no holiday in my office though). I was on pre-paternity leave as the doctors and ultrasounds had declared that that was the day. We reached the 9th floor of Max Super Specialty Hospital at IP extension on that day at around 7:30 am. It was a mixed feeling as Yasmin headed towards the labor room, beyond which I was restricted to accompany her. I was kind of happy as we were eager to see the new member of our family, yet I was worried about the labor pain Yasmin was about to go through.

At 8 am, our doctor called me and told that Yasmin was injected with medication to induce labor pain, which was quite a worry for me and I know for Yasmin too. Then after an hour a sister (nurse) came to the rest room where me along with my mom and mom-in-law were sitting and informed that Yasmin wanted to see me. The next moment I was in the labor room beside her. Yasmin’s condition was not good at all. She was getting good pain (according to our doctor). The nurse in the labor room told me that I should not stay there for long, but I insisted and stayed there for quite some time.

Then again I was in the rest room with my moms leaving Yasmin in the midst of extreme pain. I was again in the labor room at around 11:00 am. This time our doctor was there with Yasmin and was quite happy to see the intensity of her pain. She even told us that if the intensity kept rising at that pace, there’s every possibility that Yasmin might deliver normally in the next couple of hours. But that very moment something accidental happened, more precisely, I must not term it as accidental but as a relief for Yasmin. Some complication arose and the doctor explained that an immediate c-section was required to avoid any kind of risk with the baby. Yasmin seemed OK to have a c-section rather than bearing the extreme pain for another couple of hours. Though it sounds unconvincing, I was happy at that moment, for Yasmin of course, but more to learn that within the next hour I’d be able to see my baby girl. Yes, baby girl, you heard it right. We (Yasmin and I) didn’t know from where the notion came, but we were quite sure that we would have a baby girl. I hadn’t searched a single baby boy name. I do remember telling Yasmin that if we did have a baby boy I’d be so frustrated that I’d give him a girl’s name (the name I suggested at that time was Dhun Dhun Hussain, poor boy:-)).

After hearing about the cesarean from the doctor, I informed my moms about it and at the same time we moved near the Operation Theatre as Yasmin was taken there. Moms were bit tense thinking about Yasmin’s impending operation. The time was 11:30 am and from my friends who had previous cesarean experience I came to knew that the operation would take at least 30 mins. So, I thought “It’s the longest 30 minutes I have to kill now:-(“. Minutes were passing one by one and I was feeling blank most of the time besides trying to comfort my mom and MIL from their clutches of fear of caesarian. Do you believe my mom is still afraid of injections and to avoid them and any other such treatment she doesn’t let us know if she gets little cuts or scratches most of the times?

Okey, I’ll talk about my mom’s phobias later. Now, we’ll go back near the OT in Max hospital. It was really one of the longest half an hour of my life, although the most rewarding one so far. So, at last it was five minutes past twelve and I heard someone calling out Yasmin’s name from the OT. I rushed to the OT door and in a moment a doctor came near me holding a baby in his hand. He handed the baby to me and told me something about the complications that might arise. I understood what he told me completely, but seriously I didn’t like to talk with him at that moment. I just held my little girl in my hand and it was like she’s always there for us. Definitely it was a strange feeling when I was holding her; it was like we got something that we craved for ages along with some unknown feeling that I couldn’t explain to anybody. I knew Yasmin was also happy as much as I was at that moment but her operation was not over yet. So, I couldn’t see her with our angel at that moment. The next moment I was surrounded by my mom and MIL followed by lots of phone calls and of course happiness that still continues with every day with our little Ayaat. Yes, the name is Ayaat Tahseen Hussain. Sometimes, we call her Dhundhun’s (our pet cat but more like our 1st child) little sister too.

I am a die-hard egg lover and I really relished this food habit of mine to the max while I was in New Jersey last February. I was putting up in Hilton Woodbridge which was nearby to my office. My routine there was to wake up in the morning at around 7 am and get freshened by the next half an hour and talk to my family members back home in the next half an hour. At 8 O’ clock, I headed towards the hotel cafeteria for the breakfast buffet. It was an assorted breakfast buffet containing most of my favorite edible stuffs. The center of attraction for me was the cheese omlette, which was prepared in front of me. I had to identify and order the ingredients, such as sausages, salami, bacon, ham, mushroom, onions, etc. as per my requirements in the omlette. Next, lot of cheese is added on it to make it mouth watery and irresistible. Most of the mornings in New Jersey I enjoyed this special omlette for my breakfast.

It’s been quite a while since I returned from New Jersey and I hadn’t had my favorite cheese omlette since then, till yesterday morning. It was a Sunday morning and when I woke up, my wife and sister were still enjoying their sleep. So, I didn’t disturbed them and decided to cook something myself for the breakfast. We have eggs always available in our fridge, added to that, you’ll find, Salami, cheese, and butter readily available. Seeing these stuffs in fridge, immediately the thought of having cheese omlette came to my mind. So, without wasting a moment I cooked three cheese omlette within 20 minutes. Being an egg lover, I really enjoyed omlette. However, when my wife today called me in office and asked me its recipe, I realized that it was actually good. So, I decided to share this tasty recipe with all you guys visiting my blog (though the number is still very less) in order to give you all a taste of mine. The recipe is what I’ve seen and assumed in Hilton cafeteria plus my own special touch. So, here it goes:

You need two fresh brown eggs (If I am cooking for myself, I’ll take at least three eggs, and brown eggs taste really taste yummy.

A couple of Salami slices

One or two slices of cheese

One teaspoon of oil (I prefer soya oil, however, you can use any edible oil)

Salt to taste (Black salt is preferable for taste)

Black pepper

You can add any other thing if you wish (options are chopped onions, tomato, mushroom, etc.)

The cooking process:

Break the eggs in a bowl and add quarter teaspoon of salt and half of quarter teaspoon of pepper (it may vary as per your taste) into it. Then thoroughly beat the eggs to mix with salt and pepper. Next, preheat one teaspoon of oil in a small round pan in medium heat. Small pan is preferable as to maintain the shape of the omlette. Meanwhile, chop the salami slices into small pieces and pour them onto the preheated oil on the pan. Next, allow the Salami to cook for two minutes, occasionally stirring with a wooden ladle. During this time, chop your cheese slice(s) into small square-sized pieces. After the Salami gets moderately cooked, add the egg mix onto it in such a way to form a round shape. You can spread the salami pieces a little bit in the pan to cover more space. Cook in moderate heat for around 3 to 4 minutes. Check if your omlette gets thicker or not. As it gets thicker, add the chopped cheese pieces onto the center of the omlette and then fold its sides to cover the cheese. Allow to cook it for one more minute in moderate heat. Then reverse the omlette and cook it for another one or half minute. Then reverse the omlette and your finger luscious cheese omlette is ready. I hope you will like it as much as I love it.

The moment Dhoni hit the 2nd ball of Kulasekara over the long on boundary on Saturday evening, I realized what I was missing in my life for so many years – the joy of Victory, the happiness of winning, the feeling of being a part of a cricket (not exclusive) team. The calm face of Dhoni as he hit the six, reminded me of our university days. We were crazy cricket lovers and were the champions for three years in a row. In fact, I feel proud to say that we were only defeated by once in three years, that too on a league match. So, being the undisputed cricket champs of our university days, I was nostalgic, ecstatic, and at that moment I really missed all my friends with whom I cherished those memories. If the Genie of Aladin came out at that moment and asked me what I wanted, I wouldn’t think twice to ask him to take me back to the university days. I’m still overwhelmed and would like to cut short my post here only thanking Team India, and especially Dhoni who instilled my passion for sports once again with his cool, calm, and calculated leadership.

It’s been almost two months (like ages for me) that I haven’t written anything in my blog. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I started writing on many topics, like my recent days in New Jersey and New York, about how crazy and unjust as Indian fans we are, about one of my favorite TV character Mr. Brown (remember Mind Your Language). However, not a single of these topics has seen the last period. Don’t know why, but somehow I’ve lost the enthusiasm to write. May be I’m stressed out; there’s a lot reason to be so. But being stressed out really never bothers me. So, why now, still no clue. I think I’ve to try harder to bring back myself to my blog. There are lots of ideas in my mind to improve the blog, like adding a couple of new pages, updating the widgets, writing a post on something entirely new, and many more. I should have to focus on doing at least a few of these things in the coming days.

Also, I’ve to update my daily routine to a large extent. I’m like immersed in the world of crime and detection with series like Sherlock, Criminal Minds, Inspector Linley Mysteries, Dexter, Psych, and a few other similar ones. No doubt, I enjoy them very much, but it also affected me to some extent. Like, I’ve become obsessed with watching Criminal Minds. Every night, I didn’t go to sleep without watching a couple of Criminal Minds episodes. Unlike other crime and mystery series, this series is something which focuses more on the criminal psych, their background and the reason to become criminals, mostly serial killers. In a way it is disturbing. Sometimes, I wonder, how come a person can do such a heinous crime. Even I’d bad dreams quite a few times after watching such an episode. But still my obsession with CM has not lessened. This not only hampers my regular sleep but also affects many of my favorite activities.

I think I’ve to come out of these and the sooner is better for me. This is the first step of my quest to get myself back into normal blogging and doing my other favorite stuffs like, playing my guitar, a little bit of singing, and gyming for sure. No doubt I can’t escape from crime and detection series, but I’ve to keep control in myself and minimize the frequency.

Recently, while surfing online, I came to know about a new site http://www.43things.com/. It’s a very simple site about setting your resolutions for the year ahead. Here, you can list your resolutions one by one, set timelines for their completion, and if require you can set reminders for those resolutions. Since I like to make new year resolutions most of the times, though I hardly follow up to check the fulfillment of most of the resolutions, this site grabs my attention at the very first visit. Also, this year I haven’t made any resolutions during the new year eve, so this site allows me to list some of my tasks (I wouldn’t say resolutions any more) which I’m planning to do during 2011. I’m calling them tasks as being worked in a so called professional environment for more than six years, I’ve become quite comfortable in assigning, updating and resolving tasks :-). So, I’m hoping I will be able to complete these tasks listed in http://www.43things.com/ before the end of this years without any delay of the time line.

My movie watching habit has changed quite a lot since start of 2010 and I’ve become a bit selective in watching movies unlike I used to see whatever was served before in the past few years. So, looking back at 2010, I must say that I’ve watched quite a number a good movies, mostly from Hollywood. If you asked me what about Bollywood or why not Bollywood, then I’ll say I feel sorry for Bollywood. So many movies get released every year, yet only a handful of them are watchable. However, this is purely based on my choice and interest of watching movies and is definitely going to differ with many of my co-movie goers. So, when I’ll mention my favorite movies of 2010, feel free to pen them if they deserve in your opinion.

So, you just come to know what I’m going to write, right? About my favorite movies of 2010? But the list of my favorites is a long one as I became a bit choosy in 2010. Therefore, in this post I’m going to mention about the five movies that I loved most. The list starts with Inception and ends with A-Team. In between, lies Udaan, Due Date and How to Train Your Dragon.

Inception: Inception is the only movie that has made me think what the directors of other movies do to their films (this applies for most of the films I watched). It’s the kind of movie I’m expecting from Christopher Nolan after watching his previous based-on-comics flick The Dark Knight. I liked TDK so much that when I saw the first teaser of Inception, I was quite skeptic about its success. In fact I was least impressed the first time. For me to better TDK, there must be something very different, which was may be not imaginable for me. But Nolan proved me complete wrong when I watched Inception the very second day of its released. After watching the movie, I came out of the theatre with a heavy head with the thought “Am I dreaming?” Nolan bowled me over again after TDK with Inception with a kind of story and imagination that seeks some amount of intelligence and imagination from the viewers too (I’m being honest here, most of the Hindi producer/directors request the viewers to leave their brains out to watch their full on (??) entertaining movies). For me if you did not understand (I won’t say ‘like/love’ instead of understand, because there are people who used to dislike a good movie) Inception, then there is no fault in the movie: however, you must definitely check yourself :-).

Udaan: Udaan is in the 2nd place of my list. Though it’s one of the very few Bollywood flicks that I liked this year, with its uncompromised script, impeccable execution, perfect casting, and soothing music, it stands very tall among its contemporaries. In one word Udaan is Brave. I don’t know much about poems or poetry but another word for Udaan is pure Poetry. To me, loving Udaan is a gradual process. When the music of the film released, I loved it instantly. As I continued listening to the songs, my interest for the movie and the love for its music increased in the same proportion. The music of Udaan is a kind of fresh sound (thanks Amit Trivedi once again for coming up yet again with some brilliant compositions), which you will not find in a typical Bollywood movie; in fact you’ll not find such music in a non-typical Bollywood flick also. The lyrics of the songs are not only awesome but also thought provoking. A simple sample is: (Bear with my Hindi and then my translation skills)

Par khulne ki deri hain parinde urke choomenge — asmaan asmaan asmaan (It’s only the wait until their wings get opened when the birds will fly and embrace/kiss the sky)

Watching Udaan, I felt the kind of happiness after a long time, which I felt watching movies like Forest Gump, Dorr, or Swadesh. The feeling is more than happiness or satisfaction, more precisely I felt triumphant after watching Udaan.

Due Date: I hardly remember the instances when I laughed out so loud while watching a movie. Due Date is exactly the kind of movie where I laughed without any inhibition. In fact, there is no option but to laugh watching this movie. Although the length of the movies is quite short and the number of characters is also not a large one, but every moment of the movie is fun-filled. Sometimes circumstances are unimaginable, yet funny to the core. The casting is perfect for the movie. I’m already a fan of Robert Downey Jr. after watching Sherlock Holmes last year and he did every justice to his role. I heard about Zach Galifianakis from Hangover fame. His role is so weirdly good in the movie that I can’t explain his antics in black and white. You have to watch Due Date to see what kind of hilarious chaos he can bring to the normal life of a person. So, if you want to have a good laugh with brains definitely, then go for Due Date instead of the sick Bollywood’s so called comedies.

How to Train Your Dragon: This is the fourth movie in my list and the last one that I watched in 2010. I like HTTYD because the dragons in the movie didn’t scare me instead I adore and love them. I also liked it because every minute of the movie it made me think of my little cute and naughty pet Dhun Dhun (a cat). Training the dragon in the movie seemed to me like training my cat in my household. So, liking HTTYD is pure personal feeling. If you have a pet, then this is a must watch for you. But if you have none, then go and get one first.

A–Team: I think I don’t have to tell much about this one. Most of you guys must be surprised by the inclusion of A-Team to this list. But once again, A-Team is pure personal and fun and nostalgic. I’m a fan of action movies from the time I knew about movies. So, for me A-Team has all the elements needed for an out-and-out action flick. It has some unbelievably breathtaking sequences, which I know were pure special effects. But they were made in such a way that I don’t have to think whether they are real or fake while watching, the movie. For me watching A-Team was my guilty pleasure of 2010.